Enlarge / You have nothing to lose but your chains. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Simply mentioning the name "Denuvo" among some gamers is pretty much guaranteed to get you an instant, strong reaction. Just look at the comment threads underneath any Ars article covering Denuvo and you'll see plenty of complaints about the DRM-enhancing anti-piracy technology.

Irdeto, the company that acquired Denuvo in a 2018 purchase , doesn't generally make a habit of commenting at length on this reputation (or its secretive DRM schemes) in the public press. So when Irdeto Chief Operating Officer of Video Games Steeve Huin agreed to defend his company publicly in an exclusive interview with Ars Technica, I jumped at the chance to talk to him.

Irdeto, the company behind Denuvo and the newer Denuvo Anti-Cheat have announced that developers on Steam can now get direct anti-cheat integration through Steamworks. Denuvo is one of the most popular DRM solutions, with it often appearing in Windows releases of popular AAA games. Now with this Anti-Cheat easily available direct through Steam no doubt many developers will look to use it.

The question is: how will this affect Linux compatibility of games both native Linux builds and Windows games run through the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer? Back in May, we reported that the Denuvo team did mention they were aiming for support of Proton.

After shooting a message over to Irdeto here's what Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director of Denuvo by Irdeto, said in reply:

We can confirm that future deployments of Denuvo Anti-Cheat will not prohibit Linux users from accessing single-player and non-competitive multiplayer features of their games. For example, campaigns or custom multiplayer game matches. Linux users will not be required to install a kernel-mode driver, and the lack of anti-cheat software will not prevent their game from starting.

Even though there is no kernel-mode driver on Linux, the userspace game process performs significant cheat detection. Linux users accessing multiplayer will be reported to online services as running at lower integrity. Some game developers may choose to prevent Linux users from accessing ranked or competitive game modes. We'll do our best to convince developers and publishers to allow Linux users to participate in competitive modes. Still, we must be honest with them and disclose our reduced detection capability on Linux.

We'll communicate concrete plans for growing Linux detection capability and how the community can contribute as our userbase grows.

In a further clarification to us, we asked if this was only for Windows games in the Proton compatibility layer or if it will have the same kind of support for native Linux builds to which they replied "This is for Windows games in Proton".

When asked for their plans (if any) to support native Linux builds of games, here's what they said:

We have not yet been engaged by an organization expressing interest in native anti-cheat support for Linux. Once there is demand, we’d have no hesitation to take on that task. It’s worth noting that we’ve had anti-cheat technology on consoles for many years now.  Our experience with Linux-like environments on the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation 4 & 5 indicates that effective native Linux anti-cheat would require a from-the-ground-up effort and not just a port. Denuvo Anti-Cheat is heavily dependent on hardware security features which makes it fairly kernel-agnostic, so it’s just a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’. Our best bang-for-the-buck in the short term is Proton.

So there you have it. If demand comes, they will do it too and it's only a matter of time. Nice to see them being so open about it and happy to chat with us on it so clearly.

Cyberpunk 2077 may well be the most-hyped videogame of all time. It will be released in two days’ time and for hundreds of thousands of gaming fans, those 48 hours can’t be over soon enough so they can empty their wallets.

Of course, piracy is always a risk, yet after a herculean development cycle utilizing hundreds of workers to put together what developer CD Projekt Red hopes will be its most successful title, the company will throw itself to the wolves by selling the game without copy protection.

While that is likely to please many gamers and the anti-DRM movement, the decision must have companies like Ubisoft, who seem to love Denuvo, scratching their heads. But CD Projekt Red isn’t throwing all caution to the wind.

Cyberpunk 2077: Meet Denuvo

During the past couple of days, reviewers lucky enough to have received an advance copy of Cyberpunk 2077 have been publishing their early opinions. Inevitable bugs aside, the majority seem to have been impressed by the scale and ambition of the game, something which will please fans and the developer alike.

However, news that those copies had Denuvo copy protection embedded had some observers doing a quick double-take. Denuvo? In Cyberpunk 2077? A mistake, surely?

To better understand why this revelation caused alarm, it’s useful to take a look at CD Projekt’s historical attitudes towards DRM. In addition to its development work, the company also owns GOG , a digital distribution platform for video games and video.

Unlike similar services, GOG forces no DRM on its customers, something that has earned it a unique place in many gamers’ hearts. In addition, GOG and CD Projekt are behind the FCKDRM ‘movement’ which highlights the numerous downsides to DRM while promoting DRM-free sources.

With slogans like “You bought it, you own it” and “Don’t hand your rights over to corporations that wouldn’t trust you,” FCKDRM is a truth-teller when it comes to DRM and DRM-like systems. The fact is that many games these days could one day refuse to run in the absence of an Internet connection, or could be assigned to history on the whim of a publisher.

In common with all gamers, GOG and FCKDRM believe that shouldn’t be the case.

So Why Has CD Projekt Turned to Denuvo?

It’s important to note that the official release of Cyberpunk 2077 will not have Denuvo, it’s only the free review copies that are affected. Nevertheless, some feel that the company should have shied away from DRM altogether since this clashes with the stated principles of CD Projekt/GOG/FCKDRM. Those people are completely wrong and the decision to use Denuvo, in this case, makes complete sense.

From a technical perspective, Denuvo does what it claims to do. It protects games in the important days and weeks following launch, making it a perfect candidate to prevent early piracy of Cyberpunk 2077. However, and perhaps more importantly, what CD Projekt is trying to avoid here is the possibility that its game leaks out on to the Internet before launch .

On day one of release, Cyberpunk 2077 will be a sitting duck for pirates. With no DRM, CD Projekt is putting its faith in its ability to convince people to buy the game and not pirate it. To quote company co-founder Marcin Iwiński, “We cannot force people to buy things. We can only convince them to do it. We totally believe in the carrot, not in the stick.”

And this is the key point. Until December 10 arrives, no one will be able to buy this game. The developers may have already convinced hundreds of thousands of gamers to buy Cyberpunk 2077 and not pirate it, but if there’s a pre-release leak, all bets are off.

Essentially, CD Projekt will have relied on the goodwill of fans and their belief that rejecting DRM is a good thing, and then found themselves beaten, not just by pirates, but by the fact they will be unable to compete for consumption of their own product. For a pro-consumer company, that can never be right.

Using Denuvo In *FREE* Review Copies Betrays Nobody

Anyone who closely followed the GOG/FCKDRM campaign will have understood its focus. The philosophy of the entire project was to highlight the negative effects that DRM (including systems like Denuvo) can have on consumers. Things like ‘kill switches’, systems that prevent users from modifying game files, and requirements for players to continually prove ownership.

While Denuvo arguably contains all of these to some extent, not a single line of Denuvo code will make it to a legitimate copy of Cyberpunk 2077 installed on the machine of a regular PC gamer. In this respect, CD Projekt will have kept every promise it’s ever made.

In much the same way they secure their company servers from hackers intent on grabbing content they have no right to access, its use of Denuvo in Cyberpunk 2077 in review copies is merely an extension of that, not a betrayal of its principles.

What the developer is saying, it appears, is that it believes it has obtained enough trust from players to invest in its creation, but it will never trust pirates intent on leaking its product before launch. And that stance, regardless of what anyone might say, is the smartest and most pragmatic possible under the circumstances.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

My blog post about the proposed EU Copyright Directive where I make a comparison between #Article13 and #DRM and search for a possible solution how to get out of this mess.

#Copyright #Directive #EU